Ireland’s Blueprint For Success

Rick Young

Rick Young

As you read this I am in the southwest region of Ireland visiting a country I have longed to experience, as both an avid fan of links golf and someone with a wee bit of Irish heritage running through his veins.

I’m over here travelling with my 84-year-old father, my wife, sister, brother, and their spouses on a seven-person sojourn to Killarney, where we’ll be partaking in a tourist-based agenda balanced with four golf days at Waterville (pictured above), Dooks, Dingle Links and Killarney Golf & Fishing Club. If another opportunity to play presents itself, it’s going to be Old Head.

In terms of business and economic generation, Ireland’s tourism efforts relating to golf (and even non-golf visitor trips) remains quite a success story, with a blueprint that, in my opinion, should be emulated by other countries.

Ireland has doggedly worked the past 20 years to promote its embarrassment of links riches along its coastline and, in the past 10 years especially, has been reaping the rewards of those assets. The country’s co-operative marketing platform gets buy-in from all of the key principles and while the old adage of “spending money to make money” can occasionally be misleading at times, it has proven to be the bedrock of Ireland’s global efforts to entice golfers to make an Irish pilgrimage.

“We welcome about 193,000 golfers a year, of which 47 per cent are from the United States. So that’s approximately 90,000 a year or the equivalent of about five per cent of all U.S. visitors,” said Billy Condon, vice-president of U.S.A. marketing for Tourism Ireland. “They do, however, tick all the boxes relating to regional ambitions. Golfers tend to travel all over the island of Ireland and typically spend twice as much as a regular visitor.”

One piece of data Condon shared relating to tourism in general is quite startling. Back in 2013 the number of visitors to Ireland was about one million per year. By the end of 2019 though, that number will have risen to two million, a 100 per cent increase in just six years. Economic impact of that nature is worth millions.

“The growth has been phenomenal over a short period,” he said.

Condon is also quick to point to Canada as another key market for Tourism Ireland. Visitor trips are trending around 200,000 visitors per year but that figure is expected to grow exponentially in short order based on recent investment.

“We’ve added so many more (air) services to Ireland,” he explained. “Just in the last couple of years Vancouver has been added. We’ve now got Montreal to Dublin, there’s already a Montreal to Shannon. There is Air Canada Rouge, WestJet, Aer Lingus and Air Canada out of Toronto so the access from the Canadian market has exploded.”

Next year the professional golf spotlight shines squarely on the Emerald Isle. The 2019 Open Championship is coming to Ireland (Royal Portrush) for the first time since 1951 while the Irish Open will be played at Lahinch Golf Club. With both of those events waiting in prospect, Condon expects a much busier next few months for the entire Tourism Ireland team with increased assets and resources allocated to take advantage of the year’s final major championship at Royal Portrush.

“For our part, we promote golf in Ireland primarily through Golf Channel. We invest in 30-second TV ads and also have use of their proprietary digital assets. In addition, we bring golf journalists to Ireland each year. We have golf pages on Ireland.com and I can tell you that site attracts net usable visits in excess of three million per year. We also have a stand at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando and provide a platform for island of Ireland golf courses and golf tour operators. It’s quite ambitious.”

To say the least, I’ve been eager to experience what all the fuss has been about for quite some time. No doubt our entire crew is having a great time and a memorable journey.

Wait, there’s another Irish pub we haven’t tried. I’ll be sure to have a pint of Guinness for you.

Rick Young

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John Dooley
October 3, 2018 at 5:44 pm

Hi Rick, if Old Head is booked out, another course to play in the Cork area is Cork Golf Club, one of Alister Mackenzie’s redesign. Its a really nice and challenging parkland build on an old limestone quarry. However, I hope you enjoy your time in Ireland with your family, there is plenty to do, see and have fun.